The 1970 British Commonwealth Games: Scottish reactions to apartheid and sporting boycotts

Abstract The 1970 British Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh is widely thought to have been a barnstorming success and an excellent advertisement for Scotland. Recent research by the authors, however, shows that the event was a deeply politicized one: reflective of Scotland’s status as a “stateless nation,” of Westminster politics during the era more generally, and of the politics surrounding apartheid South Africa’s sporting contacts with the outside world. The games managed to avert a mass boycott organized by the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC), in retaliation for the Marylebone Cricket Club’s recent invitation of the South African national cricket team. This article will explore Scotland’s place as a nonstate actor within the 1970 crisis. Attention will be given to the domestic political response from Scottish members of Parliament, members of local Scottish councils (particularly within Edinburgh itself), and Scottish National Party (SNP) activists, angered that Scotland should pay for the crimes perceived to be made by an English sporting body. However, our piece goes beyond these discourses, to examine the broader sporting relationship that Scots had with South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), governed by white supremacist regimes during the period. Policy documents, housed in the National Records of Scotland, express UK Cabinet-level concerns about the actions of individual sporting clubs’ tours of the countries. This article will also look at how cabinet ministers, most notably Labour’s Minister for Sport Denis Howell, intervened to shape Scotland’s devolved sporting councils’ policies on contacts with South Africa and Rhodesia.</jats:p

Putin and ‘normalised’ lies

Bernie Sanders has called Trump a ‘pathological liar’. Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov repeatedly called Putin a ‘pathological liar’, the last time on the day before he was assassinated. When Chinese journalists in Shanghai asked Putin to explain why he was so popular, he said: ‘I always stick to certain rules. First, not to lie … our people deserve to be told the truth’

Modeling and Optimization for Morphing Wing Concept Generation

This report consists of two major parts: 1) the approach to develop morphing wing weight equations, and 2) the approach to size morphing aircraft. Combined, these techniques allow the morphing aircraft to be sized with estimates of the morphing wing weight that are more credible than estimates currently available; aircraft sizing results prior to this study incorporated morphing wing weight estimates based on general heuristics for fixed-wing flaps (a comparable "morphing" component) but, in general, these results were unsubstantiated. This report will show that the method of morphing wing weight prediction does, in fact, drive the aircraft sizing code to different results and that accurate morphing wing weight estimates are essential to credible aircraft sizing results

Nested Dissection Method on Transputer

Nested dissection method is an elimination method for a set of linear algebraic equations with minimum fillins. Physically it divides a domain into four subdomains, and each subdomain is again divided into four. This procedure is repeated till all nodes are included in some subdomains. Using this characteristic, the authors examine the efficiency of the method on the transputer

Spectroscopic and Photometric Observations of Unidentified Ultraviolate Variable Objects in GUVV-2 Catalog

An NUV-optical diagram made for sources from the secend Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) Ultraviolet Variability (GUVV-2) Catalog provide us a method to tentatively classify the unknown GUVV2 sources by their NUV-optical magnitudes. On the purpose of testing the correctness and generality of the method, we carry out a program on the spectroscopic observations of the unidentified GUVV2 sources. The spectroscopic identification for these 37 sources are 19 type -A to -F stars, 10 type -G to -K stars and 7 M dwarf stars together with an AGN. We also present the light curves in R-band for two RR Lyrae star candidates selected from the NUV-optical diagram, both of which perform cyclic variations. Combining there light curves and colors, we classify them as RR Lyrae stars. To confirm the results, we shows a color-color diagram for the 37 newly spectroscopically identified objects compared with the previously identified ones, which manifests good consistence with our former results, indicating that the ultroviolet variable sources can be initially classified by their NUV/optical color-color diagram.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure

Modeling and Optimization for Morphing Wing Concept Generation II

This report documents a series of investigations to develop an approach for structural sizing of various morphing wing concepts. For the purposes of this report, a morphing wing is one whose planform can make significant shape changes in flight - increasing wing area by 50% or more from the lowest possible area, changing sweep 30 or more, and / or increasing aspect ratio by as much as 200% from the lowest possible value. These significant changes in geometry mean that the underlying load-bearing structure changes geometry. While most finite element analysis packages provide some sort of structural optimization capability, these codes are not amenable to making significant changes in the stiffness matrix to reflect the large morphing wing planform changes. The investigations presented here use a finite element code capable of aeroelastic analysis in three different optimization approaches -a "simultaneous analysis" approach, a "sequential" approach, and an "aggregate" approach

Personalisation of intelligent homecare services adapted to children with motor impairments

Ambient Intelligence could support innovative application domains like motor impairments' detection at the home environment. This research aims to prevent neurodevelopmental disorders through the natural interaction of the children with embedded intelligence daily life objects, like home furniture and toys. Designed system uses an interoperable platform to provide two intelligent interrelated home healthcare services: monitoring of children¿s abilities and completion of early stimulation activities. A set of sensors, which are embedded within the rooms, toys and furniture, allows private data gathering about the child's interaction with the environment. This information feeds a reasoning subsystem, which encloses an ontology of neurodevelopment items, and adapts the service to the age and acquisition of expected abilities. Next, the platform proposes customized stimulation services by taking advantage of the existing facilities at the child's environment. The result integrates Embedded Sensor Systems for Health at Mälardalen University with UPM Smart Home, for adapted services delivery

Morphing Wing Weight Predictors and Their Application in a Template-Based Morphing Aircraft Sizing Environment II

This report presents an approach for sizing of a morphing aircraft based upon a multi-level design optimization approach. For this effort, a morphing wing is one whose planform can make significant shape changes in flight - increasing wing area by 50% or more from the lowest possible area, changing sweep 30 or more, and/or increasing aspect ratio by as much as 200% from the lowest possible value. The top-level optimization problem seeks to minimize the gross weight of the aircraft by determining a set of "baseline" variables - these are common aircraft sizing variables, along with a set of "morphing limit" variables - these describe the maximum shape change for a particular morphing strategy. The sub-level optimization problems represent each segment in the morphing aircraft's design mission; here, each sub-level optimizer minimizes fuel consumed during each mission segment by changing the wing planform within the bounds set by the baseline and morphing limit variables from the top-level problem